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Hi Everyone,
I finally learned that we really do garden all year long in Florida. For the last year I have started seeds in the greenhouse, transplanted the little plants into the garden, weeded, harvested, started seeds in the greenhouse, transplanted the little plants into the garden, weeded, and harvested over and over and over. In August I planted seeds for cabbage, collards, broccoli, lettuce, bok choy and kale. Then in September we transplanted the fall garden greens to the garden and planted carrots. Come October it was time to plant garlic and spinach in the garden, and seeds for spring flowers in the greenhouse. When November rolled around it was time to plant the onions. In January we planted sugar snap peas and then in February we planted Irish potatoes. Come March and April we started planting the spring garden with squashes and pumpkins, watermelon and cantaloupes. When June rolled around we planted sweet potatoes and then I thought that we were done—but most of the sweet potato slips died so in July we had to replant and then in storage I had a box of potatoes that we harvested in January that had really long sprouts on them and they needed to be planted. So last Monday we spent the day weeding, manuring, broadforking and planting 70 Red Pontiac potatoes. I then thought that I was done planting for a while—until I looked at the calendar and saw that in three weeks it is time to start the seeds for the fall garden. The cycle has come full swing—and I didn’t mention that while we are planting all year we are also weeding, harvesting and preserving.
This year we have had a bumper crop of winter squashes. The spaghetti squash, acorn squash and butternut squash have produced in abundance. Some winter squashes can last a year on your counter, others might last 3 to 6 months and then some only last a few months max. Acorn squash is one that only lasts a few months—but we have more than we can eat in a few months so we decided to can them. Thursday afternoon Mom and I spent in the kitchen peeling, de-seeding, and slicing the acorn squash. We then packed them into quart jars, added some maple sugar and apple juice and canned them in the pressure canner. We have never done this before—nor could we find anyone else who had canned them the way we did. I guess you could say that we experimented. The idea is that when we want to eat some acorn squash we will fry up some apples in butter, cinnamon and orange peel then add the jar of canned acorn squash and heat it all up and hopefully enjoy! On Friday I harvested 40 butternut squashes and we placed them on the curing racks in the barn with onions circling all around them in hopes to ward of any rats—because they hate onions.
As we all know the price of gas and diesel has risen considerably over the last year—which makes the price of many things go up. One item that requires diesel to produce is hay and that caused the price of hay to go up. Papa decided that in order to help us save money that he would bale some hay here on the farm—so we do not have to buy as much. When you haven’t used the hay equipment in quite a few years you usually run into some problems—and one of the reasons the equipment hasn’t been used in a few years is because some of it is broken. Papa is not the most mechanically minded person—but YouTube can be very helpful. The hydraulic arms that open and close the door that lets out the hay bales are not working. Papa needed to take them off and take them into a shop to have them repaired—but he couldn’t get them off. He heaved and hoed, he bent his crowbar and broke his Leatherman knife, he hammered and pried and still he couldn’t get the pin off that was holding the cylinders on. He called the company; he emailed the company—and all they said was “they should come off”. My brother-in-law Gary helped Papa on Monday for hours—to no avail. They thought that they were going to have to use the blow torch to remove it, but they ran out of time on Monday. Come Tuesday Papa had seen a YouTube video where someone had lifted up the door and found access to the pins holding in the arms—so Tuesday afternoon that is just what Papa and Gary did and success was sweet. Papa was able to take them to the dealership to have them fixed and in the meantime the hay baler looks a bit disorganized in the barn.
Friday found us in the middle of a computer nightmare. In the morning Papa couldn’t get the emails to come in to Outlook. When I came in from milking I went to check emails and found that they wouldn’t come in so I decided to go online and check our emails—but I couldn’t log on to our account. Papa then spent from noon to 4:15 on the phone with computer techs trying to solve our problem. I harvested butternut squash and Mom worked on the fence to her new garden design. We came up to the house around 2:00 in time to take a young man who is interested in sheep on a sheep tour. When we got back inside Papa turned the computer over to me while he left to get some alfalfa for the cows and then he sprayed some skim milk on the pastures as fertilizer. Mom headed back to the garden to finish installing a post and gate. I sat at the computer for the next two hours waiting for the tech to do something—which happened every 15 to 30 minutes. Sitting down staring at the computer is not my cup of tea—so I would run to the laundry room and start some laundry (then come back and wait at the computer). Thankfully my piano is nearby and I could sit at it and play and still be able to see the computer to see if the tech had written any notes. Then I grabbed a book and curled up in a big chair beside the computer and sat and read. Once in a while I would write the tech and ask if he was still there—and he was very quick to respond with a “yes.” At 7:30 the tech told me the the problem would take 48 hours to fix—in other words “It’s Friday night and I am ready to start my weekend, so good-bye until I call you Monday morning.” I hung up with him and called AT&T and spent hours with them to be told in the end—we will have a tech call you in 3 to 5 days to fix the problem. UGH!!!! So Saturday morning I had to call all of our Gainesville customers to see if anyone had an order—and the sad thing was that I didn’t think I needed to call one person and they showed up to pick up their order and there wasn’t anything for her. I was able to notify all our customers to let them know that this week they will have to call us to place their orders—now we need a secretary.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare